The fall from grace that Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson Sr. has experienced over the last three years has been both astounding and disappointing.
His career isn’t dead in the water by any means, especially when the league has seen an uptick in castaway quarterbacks finding new life in the second act of their careers. Remaining in Indianapolis may be in Richardson’s best interest if he wants another opportunity to prove himself.
Anthony Richardson Sr. Fighting An Uphill Battle to Relevance
Whether it was Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay with the Buccaneers or Sam Darnold with the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, reclamation projects at quarterback are all the rage right now. Like Mayfield and Darnold before him, Richardson was also a top-five draft pick.
But before Mayfield and Darnold experienced their renaissance, they were still highly productive at the NFL level. Richardson has yet to showcase that he can consistently produce at even an average rate.
Richardson has played in a total of 17 games across three seasons with the Colts, ultimately losing the starting job to newly signed Daniel Jones last summer. Jones, a former first-round pick, is another reclamation project whose career was rejuvenated with the Colts after a failed stint with the New York Giants.
After leading the Colts to an 8-4 start last season, Jones sustained a torn Achilles tendon, ending his year and putting the beginning of the 2026 campaign in jeopardy.
The Colts signed Jones to a two-year, $88 million extension earlier this offseason, and not long before that, Richardson requested and was granted permission to seek a trade. Nothing has materialized as Richardson has shopped himself to other teams. By all accounts, it appears that Richardson is going to remain with the Colts in what will be his final year under his rookie contract.
If that’s the case, Richardson’s final audition to springboard back into relevance may come this summer with extensive preseason reps. If he’s passable, the Colts may rely on Richardson to keep them afloat in the early stages of the season if Jones isn’t ready to return. Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer echoed this sentiment.
“I don’t have a ton of hope for Anthony Richardson Sr., if we’re being honest,” he wrote in his column. “But I do think remaining with the Colts for now does create an opportunity he wouldn’t have elsewhere to get first-team reps as Daniel Jones makes his way back from Achilles surgery.”
BE AN NFL GM: PFSN’s Ultimate GM Simulator
Richardson never had the opportunity to place himself back in the Colts’ good graces after Jones suffered his injury last season. By that point, Richardson was already on season-ending injured reserve after fracturing an orbital bone in his eye during warmups ahead of a game against the Arizona Cardinals on Oct. 12. Down their top two quarterbacks, the Colts turned to 44-year-old Philip Rivers, prying him out of retirement.
A 2023 rookie season cut short by a shoulder injury, a 2024 benching in favor of Joe Flacco, and a 2025 orbital fracture on the heels of losing his job to another veteran for the second year in a row. That has been the Richardson experience for the Colts.
There is a version of this story where flashes of brilliance compensate for the interruptions. But that is where complications arise. When Richardson has played, the talent has been evident in moments, but consistency has not followed. His 2024 season, the closest to a full sample size, left evaluators uneasy.
His completion percentage fell below 50%, interceptions outnumbered touchdowns, and he posted an impact score of 72.6 on PFSN’s QB Impact Metric, which ranked 25th in the league during the 2024 NFL season.
